Shershah carnage: Acquitted suspects to become respondents

Court directs petitioner to file an amended title.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court directed the petitioner and complainant in the Shershah scrap market carnage case to file an amended title that would turn the nine acquitted suspects into respondents.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi heard the counsel for petitioner on Friday. The counsel said that the petitioner, Muhammad Nafees, had refused to identify the accused before the Anti-Terrorism Court because he was frightened. He had been threatened and intimidated by the accused.

The petitioner admitted he had made a mistake by not identifying them and he asked the court to order the police to arrest the men again and put them on trial.

On Friday, the court ordered the counsel and the petitioner to file an amended title and to include the names of the acquitted men as respondents in the title of the petition so that they are issued notices and then a verdict can be reached.

The bench later put off further hearing to a date to be fixed by the office of the court.

The nine accused, Muhammad Tufail, Abid Ali, Asghar Ali, Tahseen, Abdul Rasheed, Johar, M Aijaz, M Iqbal and Muhammad Akbar, were acquitted by the ATC Administrative Judge Justice Sajjad Ali Shah on January 26 after Muhammad Nafees failed to identify them in the judges chamber.

Thirteen shop owners and salesmen were killed in the Shershah scrap market on October 19, 2010 when unidentified armed men on motorcycles opened indiscriminate fire. Six shopkeepers sustained injuries.

An FIR was registered a day later on the complaint of Nafees.

Gulbahar police first arrested Lal Muhammad Magsi and later nominated three others, Aslam Pervez, Shafi Muhammad and Nawaz. The nine men who were acquitted had voluntarily surrendered before the Special Investigations Unit. Three other accused, Hameed alias Mulla Raju, Noor Muhammad alais Baba Ladla and Rashid, are still absconding.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2011.